The Home

A tragi-comedy published in 1971 that looks at the experience of a woman escaping a broken marriage and trying to make a new home for grown-up children who no longer need her.

Dealing with themes of abandonment, loneliness, liberation and love, Eleanor’s emotional journey is often raw and dark, but at times funny and uplifting as she grapples with her newfound singledom under the critical eyes of her mother and mother-in-law, and the selfish attitudes of various suitors.

Perfectly capturing the tone of the 70s, and the reality faced by so many women when forced to re-assess their roles as wife and mother.
The British Library Women Writers series is a curated collection of novels by female authors who enjoyed broad, popular appeal in their day. In a century during which the role of women in society changed radically, their fictional heroines highlight women’s experience of life inside and outside the home through the decades in these rich, insightful and evocative stories.

Penelope Mortimer (1918–1999) published her first novel in 1947. She was married twice; first to the Reuters journalist Charles Dimont, and later to the barrister and author, John Mortimer. Her best-known novel, the semi-autobiographical The Pumpkin Eater, was published in 1962 and made into a successful film starring Anne Bancroft. Her book Daddy's Gone A-Hunting was reissued by McNally Editions in 2022.